Salon

It is a long and venerable tradition of Russian literature that doctors love literature, many of them to the point of becoming writers themselves. The archetypal example was set by Anton Chekhov, but there have been plenty of doctor writers ever since, from Mikhail Bulgakov to Vassily Aksyonov, all first-rate stars on the literary horizon.

Another Russian tradition, established as long ago as the times of Peter the Great, was sending Russian masters of art abroad, especially to Italy, to absorb the treasures of Europe's civilization. The effort was mostly centered on painters and sculptors, but authors soon warmed to the idea as well: Nikolai Gogol lived in Rome for many years.

A recent event indicated the confluence of these two traditions. The Joseph Brodsky Memorial Fellowship Fund has announced that its new fellow for 2008 will be Boris Khersonsky.

Khersonsky, 58, lives in Odessa in Ukraine and writes poetry and essays in Russian. He is a psychiatrist with several decades of active practice behind him and is currently the chair of the Department of Clinical Psychology of Odessa National University. His insightful poems have been printed by many publications in Russia and received wide critical acclaim. Of special interest was his collection of 2006, published by New Literary Review in its series "Poetry of the Russian Diaspora." The collection was titled "Family Archive" and included poetically reworked scenes from the lives, memoirs and letters of numerous people from Lviv and Odessa to Brooklyn, and the plight of the Jewish people and their Soviet neighbors in the 20th century. Khersonsky's poetry brings a streak of psychoanalysis into verse (clearly derived from the author's professional activity), combined with an acute sense of God's presence in the world.

A year before his death, the Nobel laureate Joseph Brodsky wrote a letter to the mayor of Rome asking for the establishing of a Russian Academy in Rome to mend the severed line of cultural exchange between Europe and Russia. His friends fulfilled his dream, at least in part, by establishing a fellowship that allows authors writing in Russian, irrespective of their nationality, to live in Rome and Venice for a few months. "Italy was a revelation to the Russians," Brodsky wrote, "now it can become the source of their renaissance."

With the relations between Russia and the West at a remarkable low point, it is vital that politicians refrain from transferring these tensions to everyday life. It is especially vital that all cultural ties remain strong and, if possible, grow even stronger. The Joseph Brodsky fellowship serves exactly this purpose.